Welcome to the My Mexican ArticlesWritten and researched by Margaret Odrowaz-Sypniewska, B.F.A.

Since Mexico was part of what is now the United States West, I have placed these articles here. Mexico is a wonderful country to travel to because of all its culture, arts, and archaeological remains of the Aztecs, Zapotecs, Mixtec, and Mayans. I have visited there many times and would like to share what the real Mexico was and is today.

Chichén Itzà ("well of the Ah-Itzaes") was said to have been ruled by three lords. They were brothers who came from the West. They built handsome temples, were unmarried and devout.

One of these three died or left Chichén Itzà, and the other two became wanton and lustful. They were put to death in the sacred sacrificial cenote, after they disgraced themselves among the people. The Itzás had a ruler named Kulkulcan. The main pyramid carries his name. Kulkulcan had no wives or children, and was revered as a god, because he brought order after the folly of the three former lords. Kulkulcan built another great city called Mayapan near Mérida, Yucatan, Mexico. Mayapan ("standard of the Mayas") also had a round observatory, like the one at Chichén Itzà. Today (this was written in 1566) they call it Ich-pa or "within the fortification."

***Today the name has reverted back to Mayapan, and the city is located just north of the city of Merida.

After Kulkulcan left the remaining chiefs constructed temples and residences there. Their high priest was called Ahkin May. Kulkulcan and Quetzalcoatl were one in the same. One is the Mayan name while the other is the Aztec name.

The Spaniards left the Yucatan after eating their food and packing more to take on their journey. They wanted to fed their armies and even took the strongest men to help them find gold. A drought came to their land, while their storehouses were almost depleted. When the corn was gone, many ate the bark of the cumché trees (their inside was soft and mellow tasting). After the famine, the practice of making male and female slave offerings, to the gods, began. These sacrificial victims were tossed into the sacred cenote pool at Chichén Itzà. They thought to appease the gods and bring rain.

Next came a five year plague of locusts. The people were both starving and dying of "white man's" diseases. Never had the people suffered like this before.

When the Spanish returned to the area it was clothed in an eerie, barren silence. Only the ghosts of the people remained.

Landa, Friar Diego de. Yucatan Before and After the Conquest. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1978 reprint of a 1566 manuscript, 6-11.